Forget about even a high-end laptop. Not enough muscle. You need a very beefy workstation with tons of hard disks in a raid configuration with a very good raid controller (on board is not good enough) and lots of memory.

I understand I won't be able to work in uncompressed HD completely. However, i have about 15 minutes of green screen and motion graphics work that need to be done.
Editing was a breeze on my laptop.
My movie (the 15min) exported to uncompressed TIFF at 32-bit would be 8MB per file, or 200MB/s. An eSATA external disk is around 300MB/s, which leads me to believe that I can work (slowly and painfully, yes) in AE CS3, and then import all this into my Adobe Premiere CS3 timeline, and then reopen the entire completed project in AE and render out to a 1TB eSATA drive. Will this last step work?
Ultimately, I have to take the uncompressed film to a post facility for color correction, checking and rendering of the final master.

I understand I won't be able to work in uncompressed HD completely. However, i have about 15 minutes of green screen and motion graphics work that need to be done.

Ultimately, I have to take the uncompressed film to a post facility for color correction, checking and rendering of the final master.

So, why not work in uncompressed proxies? Or even lightly compressed proxies? Do you HAVE to do your work with full sized files? Working with 540p or 480p uncompressed images is going to give you the same quality for greenscreen and motion graphics. And it will speed up the process tremendously. When you get ready to go to the facility, take the original files and your proxies, let them do a media replacement, and a master render.

They don't even work with full sized files in Hollywood. Who wants to cut and grade on 4k? Doing the same thing works FINE on 1080p or 2k files at that level.

So, why not work in uncompressed proxies? Or even lightly compressed proxies? Do you HAVE to do your work with full sized files? Working with 540p or 480p uncompressed images is going to give you the same quality for greenscreen and motion graphics. And it will speed up the process tremendously. When you get ready to go to the facility, take the original files and your proxies, let them do a media replacement, and a master render.

They don't even work with full sized files in Hollywood. Who wants to cut and grade on 4k? Doing the same thing works FINE on 1080p or 2k files at that level.

I was also considering it, but since i shot green screen in HDV, i have no idea how the settings on a proxy will work with the actual uncompressed footage. I don't want to take it to the studio to realize i have to fine-tune my compositing work. Since this is my first time, i guess I'm going to get my hands dirty either way.

I was also considering it, but since i shot green screen in HDV, i have no idea how the settings on a proxy will work with the actual uncompressed footage. I don't want to take it to the studio to realize i have to fine-tune my compositing work. Since this is my first time, i guess I'm going to get my hands dirty either way.

Easy. Take 10 seconds of your video. Cut an uncompressed proxy file at 480i. Do your compositing and see how it works. Replace the media yourself and see how it blows up full sized. If that 10 seconds looks like you want your final to look, you're all set.

Incidentally, call the studio, and tell them you'd like to do your work with proxies, and ask them for their advice on the workflow. And if they see any potential issues. They do this all the time, and can probably give you great advice.

I've already edited the film in native HDV. I can open the project unrendered in AE CS3 and finish it from there. I was pretty impressed with Cineform when i shot a short film in January, and used the trial version of Aspect HD to capture HDV live via OnLocation.

Easy. Take 10 seconds of your video. Cut an uncompressed proxy file at 480i. Do your compositing and see how it works. Replace the media yourself and see how it blows up full sized. If that 10 seconds looks like you want your final to look, you're all set.

Incidentally, call the studio, and tell them you'd like to do your work with proxies, and ask them for their advice on the workflow. And if they see any potential issues. They do this all the time, and can probably give you great advice.

-P

I'm following your advice, but I'm doing it on native HDV - my Laptop can handle it. I'm doing the project in 32-bit AE CS3, and will probably finish here.

I have an 18" full 1080p LCD screen, but I was wondering how I'm going to blow-it-up to really check the fine details.

About the studios in Mumbai, India - they suck - at least the ones I can afford. They don't know anything about HDV or HD. All they know is Digibeta. I've tried - it's like breaking your head against a huge wall.

I would not do this with HDV. You want something with more room to do things in post, like a good 10-bit codec. But if that's your choice, that's ok. You should be able to pull a still image from the footage, and take it into photoshop or similar and blow it up 400% and check your matte. Not too tough.

Digiibeta is 10-bit YUV 4:2:2. You can use that for your proxies actually as that is a terrific SD implementation.